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Search indexed NASA NTRS and DOE OSTI research on propulsion, heat transfer, battery materials and energy systems. Follow report and document links to the original sources.

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All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
NASA NTRS2016

Tailoring a Human Reliability Analysis to Your Industry Needs

Companies at risk of accidents caused by human error that result in catastrophic consequences include: airline industry mishaps, medical malpractice, medication mistakes, aerospace failures, major oil spills, transportation mishaps, power production failures and manufacturing facility incidents. Human Reliability Assessment (HRA) is used to analyze the inherent risk of human behavior or actions introducing errors into the operation of a system or process. These assessments can be used to identify where errors are most likely to arise and the potential risks involved if they do occur. Using the basic concepts of HRA, an evolving group of methodologies are used to meet various industry needs. Determining which methodology or combination of techniques will provide a quality human reliability assessment is a key element to developing effective strategies for understanding and dealing with risks caused by human errors. There are a number of concerns and difficulties in "tailoring" a Human Reliability Assessment (HRA) for different industries. Although a variety of HRA methodologies are available to analyze human error events, determining the most appropriate tools to provide the most useful results can depend on industry specific cultures and requirements. Methodology selection may be based on a variety of factors that include: 1) how people act and react in different industries, 2) expectations based on industry standards, 3) factors that influence how the human errors could occur such as tasks, tools, environment, workplace, support, training and procedure, 4) type and availability of data, 5) how the industry views risk & reliability, and 6) types of emergencies, contingencies and routine tasks. Other considerations for methodology selection should be based on what information is needed from the assessment. If the principal concern is determination of the primary risk factors contributing to the potential human error, a more detailed analysis method may be employed versus a requirement to provide a numerical value as part of a probabilistic risk assessment. Industries involved with humans operating large equipment or transport systems (ex. railroads or airlines) would have more need to address the man machine interface than medical workers administering medications. Human error occurs in every industry; in most cases the consequences are relatively benign and occasionally beneficial. In cases where the results can have disastrous consequences, the use of Human Reliability techniques to identify and classify the risk of human errors allows a company more opportunities to mitigate or eliminate these types of risks and prevent costly tragedies.

DeMott, D. L.↗
NASA NTRS2023

Designing an Observing System to Study the Surface Biology and Geology (SBG) of the Earth in the 2020s

Observations of planet Earth from space are a critical resource for science and society. Satellite measurements represent very large investments and United States (US) agencies organize their effort to maximize the return on that investment. The US National Research Council conducts a survey of Earth science and applications to prioritize observations for the coming decade. The most recent survey prioritized a visible to shortwave infrared imaging spectrometer and a multispectral thermal infrared imager to meet a range of needs for studying Surface Biology and Geology (SBG). SBG will be the premier integrated observatory for observing the emerging impacts of climate change by characterizing the diversity of plant life and resolving chemical and physiological signatures. It will address wildfire risk, behavior, and recovery as well as responses to hazards such as oil spills, toxic minerals in minelands, harmful algal blooms, landslides, and other geological hazards. The SBG team analyzed needed instrument characteristics (spatial, temporal, and spectral resolutions, measurement uncertainty) and assessed the cost, mass, power, volume, and risk of different architectures. We present an overview of the Research and Applications trade-study analysis of algorithms, calibration and validation needs, and societal applications with specifics of substudies detailed in other articles in this special collection. We provide a value framework to converge from hundreds down to three candidate architectures recommended for development. The analysis identified valuable opportunities for international collaboration to increase the revisit frequency, adding value for all partners, leading to a clear measurement strategy for an observing system architecture.

Observing System↗
DOE OSTI2021

Changes in rock matrix compressibility during deep CO 2 storage

Geologic carbon storage projects aim to permanently trap large volumes of CO 2 in reservoir rock sealed with low permeability layers. As high-pressure supercritical or liquid CO 2 is injected, hydromechanical and chemical processes caused by the reaction between the rock and acidic mixture of brine and CO 2 are initiated. The compressibility of reservoir rock needs to be properly characterized in order to assess the deformation and stability of the host formations, and there are a number of factors to be considered, including the matrix structure, solid, pores, and fluid. Here this study triggers from a fundamental question whether CO 2 treatment affects the compressibility of the rock matrix and its dominant composing solid minerals. Three different reservoir representatives are selected: Berea sandstone for silica-rich rock, and Apulian limestone and Indiana limestone for calcite-rich rock. Quartz and calcite are the main composing minerals of the reservoir rock, and their crystals are separately examined. Experimental methods are introduced for high-pressure CO 2 treatment of water-saturated materials, and measurements of the unjacketed and solid compressibilities are conducted. No change in the solid compressibility of the sandstone and quartz after CO 2 treatment is observed, whereas it increases by 18–21% for the limestones and by 15% for calcite. The latter observation is inconsistent with the ultrasonic wave velocities measurements and is believed to be due to the local dissolution of the calcite crystal surface. Our results show that only the solid matrix of the limestones becomes more compressible after CO 2 treatment. Consequent microimaging and mercury intrusion porosimetry analyses allowed observations of dissolution and precipitation of calcite, and creation of new connected and non-connected pores. Finally, the changes in limestone solid compressibilities and pore structure could significantly affect the rock properties and behavior during and after CO 2 injection and should be accounted for in the reservoir models.

32 ENERGY CONSERVATION, CONSUMPTION, AND UTILIZATI↗
DOE OSTI2022

Quantifying Value and Representing Competitiveness of Electricity System Technologies in Economic Models

Evaluating competition between electricity technologies is challenging because it depends on both their costs and their values. While technology costs can typically be estimated from projections of the cost components - capital, fuel, and O&M - estimating a technology's value is more complex due to its dependence on its contributions to multiple different grid services, each with prices that can vary substantially over space and time. In this work, using an electricity model of the contiguous United States, we develop relationships between relative value and share of total generation for major electricity generation technologies which, when paired with projections of technology costs, can be used to estimate technology competitiveness. We identify significant differences in the relationship between relative value and generation share for variable renewable energy (VRE) and non-VRE sources, but we demonstrate that all technologies require consideration of their dynamic values (in addition to cost) when evaluating competitiveness. In addition, we demonstrate that relative value of a technology is substantially impacted by not only its own generation share but also other aspects of the system state, in particular the mix of other technologies present in the system. Finally, we use the developed relative value relationships in combination with projections of future technology costs in a coarse resolution model that competes technologies based on a comprehensive competitiveness metric: profitability-adjusted LCOE (PLCOE). We show that this simple representation of technology competition approximately recovers the generation mix from a detailed model, which is not possible using LCOE alone. Such an approach can be used to improve the representation of technology competition in coarse-resolution models such as integrated assessment models, for which simplified metrics are often needed.

electricity model↗
DOE OSTI2024

Unlocking Solutions: Innovative Approaches to Identifying and Mitigating the Environmental Impacts of Undocumented Orphan Wells in the United States

In the United States, hundreds of thousands of undocumented orphan wells have been abandoned, leaving the burden of managing environmental hazards to governmental agencies or the public. These wells, a result of over a century of fossil fuel extraction without adequate regulation, lack basic information like location and depth, emit greenhouse gases, and leak toxic substances into groundwater. For most of these wells, basic information such as well location and depth is unknown or unverified. Addressing this issue necessitates innovative and interdisciplinary approaches for locating, characterizing, and mitigating their environmental impacts. Our survey of the United States revealed the need for tools to identify well locations and assess conditions, prompting the development of technologies including machine learning to automatically extract information from old records (95%+ accuracy), remote sensing technologies like aero-magnetometers to find buried wells, and cost-effective methods for estimating methane emissions. Notably, fixed-wing drones equipped with magnetometers have emerged as cost-effective and efficient for discovering unknown wells, offering advantages over helicopters and quadcopters. Efforts also involved leveraging local knowledge through outreach to state and tribal governments as well as citizen science initiatives. These initiatives aim to significantly contribute to environmental sustainability by reducing greenhouse gases and improving air and water quality.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2021

leapR: An R Package for Multiomic Pathway Analysis

A generalized goal of many high-throughput data studies is to identify functional mecha-nisms that underlie observed biological phenomena, whether disease outcomes or metabolic out-put. Increasingly, studies that rely on multiple sources of high-throughput data (genomic, tran-scriptomic, proteomic, metabolomic) are faced with a challenge of utilizing the data in a way that maximizes utility. However, methods for integration of multiple forms of molecular data into a biolog-ically coherent frameworks are needed. Furthermore, we have developed a framework to assess biological pathway activity that relates to phenotypic outcome using multi-source data. Availability and implementation: The leapR package with user manual and example workflow is available for download from GitHub (https://github.com/biodataganache/leapR).

59 BASIC BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2026

The Amazon River‐Breeze Circulation Limits Detection of Aerosol‐Cloud Interactions in Warm Clouds

Increased aerosol concentrations can brighten low-level clouds and extend their lifetimes, but aerosol–cloud interactions (ACI) remain highly uncertain and difficult to quantify. We show that part of this uncertainty is caused by topographical influences on clouds, that is, those arising from land–water contrasts. This is demonstrated using satellite retrievals in regions with extensive river networks, such as the Amazon Basin. 15 years of MODerate resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) satellite data show cloud formation over the Amazon River basin is suppressed by 26% with warm low clouds above the river exhibiting a 22% smaller droplet effective radius and 18% higher droplet concentration ($N_d$) compared to adjacent land clouds. Thus, clouds above the river may appear polluted but are actually influenced by river-breeze circulations driven by the thermal contrast between the river and the surrounding land. These responses are robust in both wet and dry seasons, and tests using an improved MODIS retrieval product show cloud differences are unlikely due to retrieval artifacts. In situ measurements from the Green Ocean Amazon Experiment (GoAmazon) confirm that $N_d$ is elevated above rivers and are also higher when carbon monoxide concentrations are elevated near the large city of Manaus. Lagrangian airmass tracking over Manaus shows that regional-scale river-breeze circulations impact $N_d$ as much as the urban aerosol plume, complicating ACI attribution and highlighting the need to isolate land-surface effects to assess ACI in continental regions.

Aerosol-Cloud Interactions↗
DOE OSTI2025

Opening doors to physical sample tracking and attribution in Earth and environmental sciences

Physical samples and their associated data and metadata underpin scientific discoveries across disciplines and can enable new science when appropriately archived. However, there are significant gaps in current practices and infrastructure that prevent accurate provenance tracking, reproducibility, and attribution. For most samples, descriptive metadata are often sparse, inaccessible, or absent. Samples and associated data and metadata may also be scattered across numerous physical collections, data repositories, laboratories, data files, and papers with no clear linkage or provenance tracking as new information is generated over time. The Earth Science Information Partners (ESIP) Physical Samples Curation Cluster has therefore developed guidance for scientific authors on ‘Publishing Open Research Using Physical Samples.’ This involved synthesizing existing practices, gathering community feedback, and assessing real-world examples. We identified improvements needed to enable authors to efficiently cite and link Earth science samples and related data, and track their use. Our goal is to help improve discoverability, interoperability, and reuse of physical samples, and associated data and metadata. Though primarily focused on the needs of Earth and environmental sciences, these guidelines are broadly applicable.

58 GEOSCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2023

Snekmer: a scalable pipeline for protein sequence fingerprinting based on amino acid recoding

Abstract Motivation The vast expansion of sequence data generated from single organisms and microbiomes has precipitated the need for faster and more sensitive methods to assess evolutionary and functional relationships between proteins. Representing proteins as sets of short peptide sequences (kmers) has been used for rapid, accurate classification of proteins into functional categories; however, this approach employs an exact-match methodology and thus may be limited in terms of sensitivity and coverage. We have previously used similarity groupings, based on the chemical properties of amino acids, to form reduced character sets and recode proteins. This amino acid recoding (AAR) approach simplifies the construction of protein representations in the form of kmer vectors, which can link sequences with distant sequence similarity and provide accurate classification of problematic protein families. Results Here, we describe Snekmer, a software tool for recoding proteins into AAR kmer vectors and performing either (i) construction of supervised classification models trained on input protein families or (ii) clustering for de novo determination of protein families. We provide examples of the operation of the tool against a set of nitrogen cycling families originally collected using both standard hidden Markov models and a larger set of proteins from Uniprot and demonstrate that our method accurately differentiates these sequences in both operation modes. Availability and implementation Snekmer is written in Python using Snakemake. Code and data used in this article, along with tutorial notebooks, are available at http://github.com/PNNL-CompBio/Snekmer under an open-source BSD-3 license. Supplementary information Supplementary data are available at Bioinformatics Advances online.

59 BASIC BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2020

Fire as a fundamental ecological process: Research advances and frontiers

Fire is a powerful ecological and evolutionary force that regulates organismal traits, population sizes, species interactions, community composition, carbon and nutrient cycling and ecosystem function. It also presents a rapidly growing societal challenge, due to both increasingly destructive wildfires and fire exclusion in fire–dependent ecosystems. As an ecological process, fire integrates complex feedbacks among biological, social and geophysical processes, requiring coordination across several fields and scales of study. Here, we describe the diversity of ways in which fire operates as a fundamental ecological and evolutionary process on Earth. We explore research priorities in six categories of fire ecology: (a) characteristics of fire regimes, (b) changing fire regimes, (c) fire effects on above–ground ecology, (d) fire effects on below–ground ecology, (e) fire behaviour and (f) fire ecology modelling. We identify three emergent themes: the need to study fire across temporal scales, to assess the mechanisms underlying a variety of ecological feedbacks involving fire and to improve representation of fire in a range of modelling contexts. As fire regimes and our relationships with fire continue to change, prioritizing these research areas will facilitate understanding of the ecological causes and consequences of future fires and rethinking fire management alternatives.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2020

Scoping Analysis of Sodium Cooled Fast Spectrum Test Reactor Cores

A team from the national laboratories conducted a study that assessed advanced reactor technology options and the irradiation needs of a broad group of stakeholders. This identified a gap in the fast neutron irradiation capability - the need for a test reactor that can deliver high neutron fluxes of fast neutrons. The study compared fast and thermal neutron irradiation technology options based on technology maturity and the ability to meet strategic objectives, along with pathways to deployment and tradeoffs in mission. It also provided a recommendation on specific technology options to address the current gap in fast neutron irradiation capabilities. In this context, a detailed scope of work was prepared that pertains to a trade study focusing on the core of a fast neutron spectrum test reactor. This report presents the main results obtained by a team of Argonne National Laboratory (ANL) and Idaho National Laboratory (INL) scientists. It aims at developing an overall understanding of how the various areas important to the design and successful operation of such a facility interact with one another. Developing a sense of the relevant sensitivities at a systems level creates an understanding of where and how margins may be available to improve performances (e.g., flux level, capacity factor, and thermal hydraulic limits). Emphasis is given to the reactor (core design options and safety) and its fuel cycle (fuel supply and fabrication, as well as spent fuel management).

22 GENERAL STUDIES OF NUCLEAR REACTORS↗
DOE OSTI2020

Impact of undoped substrates on high performance silicon solar cells

Today's highest-efficiency silicon solar cells typically operate near the threshold between low-level and high-level injection. It is not well understood if pushing further into a regime in which the cell operating point is solidly in high-level injection at all times of the day has further benefits for the solar cell performance. From a reliability perspective, cells fabricated on lower doped silicon have a larger breakdown voltage. This advantage can affect the design of modules allowing higher voltages and a relaxation of the number of bypass diodes needed. In this project, we present a comprehensive assessment, both experimental and using simulation, of how bulk resistivity, light intensity, and operation temperature impact the performance of the silicon solar cell. This work incorporates a comprehensive device physics analysis assisted by numerical simulation. The source code is now available under General Public License (GPL3), and to further leverage the findings of this project and outreach people outside of the scientific community, we are working with www.pveducation.org (which receives >1 million visitors a year) to create interactive content using our simulation results. The simulation results indicate that high bulk resistivity wafers (>>10 Ωcm) require bulk Shockley-Read-Hall (SRH) lifetimes in the millisecond range to outperform wafers with standard bulk resistivities (<10 Ωcm). Additionally, above bulk resistivities of 10 Ωcm (the exact value depends on the bulk characteristics of the wafer), the cell efficiency is weakly dependent on the bulk resistivity. As a result, ingot manufactures may have an opportunity to further reduce wafer cost by growing higher resistivity ingots that are more tolerant to resistivity variations. This project is particularly relevant today, as solar cell architectures with improved surface passivation and milliseconds lifetimes wafers are commercially available, leveraging potential benefits of using higher bulk resistivities. Outside of interdigitated back contact (IBC) cell, reported studies on high resistivity silicon (>100 Ωcm) are very limited. To the best of our knowledge, this project provides for the first-time experimental insight on solar cells fabricated on wafers with bulk resistivities up to several thousand Ωcm, delivering a comprehensive vision of their performance under real-world temperature and light intensity operation conditions. We manufactured and characterized solar cells with bulk resistivities in the range of 1 Ωcm to >15k Ωcm. Under standard testing conditions (STC), we measured solar cells efficiencies over 20% over the entire range of bulk resistivities, using our baseline cell processing. To evaluate the cell performance in real-world operation conditions, the solar cells were measured at different temperatures (25-80°C) and at different light intensities (0.1-1 suns). The measurements show that the bulk resistivity does not impact the solar cell response to temperature and light intensity. Similar thermal coefficients (TC) were measured for standard and high bulk resistivities, and they are comparable with the TC values reported in the literature for standard bulk resistivities <10 Ωcm. After light soaking, the solar cell didn’t show signs of light-induced degradation (LID). This result was expected since n-type float zone (FZ) wafers were used in this work, i.e. low traces of boron and low concentration of oxygen (oxygen is typically found in the seed end of Czochralski (CZ) ingots). We measured for high bulk resistivities (>10 Ωcm) extremely high breakdown voltages (>1000V). In conclusion, the insight provided by this project can positively impact the levelized cost of energy (LCOE) of the photovoltaic systems through its effect on cell and ingot manufacturing yield, silicon cell power output, and module reliability.

14 SOLAR ENERGY↗
DOE OSTI2021

Proceedings from the State of the Science and Technology for Minimizing Impacts to Bats from Wind Energy

The U.S. Department of Energy Wind Energy Technologies Office (DOE WETO), and the National Renewable Energy Laboratory convened a workshop entitled the State of the Science and Technology for Minimizing Impacts to Bats from Wind Energy on 13–14 November 2019. The objectives of the workshop were to (1) Identify the current impact minimization measures that are, or can be, used to reduce bat fatalities at wind energy facilities, (2) Assess the current effectiveness of those minimization measures, (3) Identify and assess the research and development (R&D) opportunities needed to optimize and improve the effectiveness of current minimization and deterrent technologies and inform the development of future solutions; and (4) Identify potential emerging or novel methods for informing impact minimization measures at or around wind energy facilities. Specifically, the workshop focused on deterrent and curtailment strategies. For deterrents, the discussion centered on the existing technology (i.e., ultrasonic deterrents, dim-UV light, and texture coating), integration with wind turbines (either retrofitting or out of the box installation), effectiveness, validation studies, and cost (e.g., technology, installation, validation, and maintenance). For curtailment, the conversation was divided into blanket curtailment (i.e., based on time and wind speed) and smart curtailment (i.e., blanket curtailment plus additional variables such as temperature or bat activity). The workshop included plenary presentations, panels, and breakout sessions to share data and stakeholder perspectives, and engage participants. Although there are several priority topics related to bat and wind energy, this workshop focused the discussion on the current technologies and strategies that are, or can be, used to reduce bat fatalities at wind energy facilities, status of research and development (R&D) of minimization measures, opportunities to optimize costs and improve effectiveness, and potential emerging or novel approaches to explore. This workshop took a holistic approach and discussed all aspects associated with advancing deterrent technologies and curtailment strategies, including the technological, biological, economic, and regulatory barriers faced by the wind energy and wildlife community.

13 HYDRO ENERGY↗
DOE OSTI2021

The Evolving Role of Extreme Weather Events in the U.S. Power System with High Levels of Variable Renewable Energy

As weather-dependent renewable generation grows, it is important for power system planning to understand the broad trends and correlations between weather, renewable resources, and load. The traditional planning, performed by utilities and system operators, includes the study of system resource adequacy during peak load periods in the summer and winter to ensure the generation and transmission system is appropriate to meet load. But in a power grid with a high penetration of variable renewable energy (i.e., wind and solar), periods of high risk to system resource adequacy may no longer correspond only to hours of peak load. In particular, high shares of variable renewable energy, even when well-forecasted to inform system operations, can further complicate the stress extreme weather events already place on the grid. They also may lead to changes to the types of weather conditions that are most problematic to system operations and resource adequacy due to widespread and extended deficits of wind and solar generation. Accordingly, the focus of reliability assessments in long-term planning studies may need to evolve in the coming years to more fully incorporate weather events that lead to these deficits. This report seeks to identify these new weather events and understand the characteristics of the events that lead to system risk of future systems with higher penetrations variable renewable energy.

29 ENERGY PLANNING, POLICY, AND ECONOMY↗
DOE OSTI2022

Benchmark Specification for FFTF LOFWOS Test #13

The Fast Flux Test Facility (FFTF) at the Hanford site in Washington was designed by the Westinghouse Electric Corporation for the U.S. Department of Energy. FFTF was a 400 MW thermal, oxide-fueled, liquid sodium cooled test reactor, built to assist development and testing of advanced fuels and materials for fast breeder reactors. After reaching criticality in 1980, FFTF operated until 1992, providing the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) with the means to test fuels, materials, and other components in a fast neutron flux environment. In July 1986, a series of unprotected transients (with the plant protection system intentionally disabled) were performed in FFTF as part of the passive safety demonstration program. Among these were thirteen loss of flow without scram (LOFWOS) tests. The goals of this program included confirming the liquid metal reactor safety margins, providing data for computer code validation, and demonstrating the inherent and passive safety benefits of specific design features. The test defined in this benchmark is LOFWOS Test #13, which was initiated at 50% power and 100% flow with the pump pony motors turned off. This benchmark specification is intended to support collaborative efforts within international partnerships on the validation of simulation tools and models in the area of Sodium-cooled Fast Reactor (SFR) safety. Validated tools and models are needed to evaluate SFR inherent safety characteristics and assess the impact of passive design features in response to accident initiators. Comparisons with experimental data and the results of safety analyses from other groups create unique opportunities to improve predictive capabilities of computational codes and methods for SFR modeling and simulation. The conditions of the LOFWOS test along with the feedback from FFTF’s limited free bow core restraint system and the novel passive reactivity control Gas-Expansion Modules (GEMs) pose a very challenging and uniquely valuable benchmark exercise.

21 SPECIFIC NUCLEAR REACTORS AND ASSOCIATED PLANTS↗
DOE OSTI2022

Annual Transuranic Waste Inventory Report – 2022 (Data Cutoff Date 12/31/2021)

The purpose of this Annual Transuranic Waste Inventory Report (ATWIR) – 2022 is to document the inventory estimate of transuranic (TRU) waste reported by the TRU waste generator sites as of December 31, 2021. This report also notes major changes to the inventory since the ATWIR-2021, which had a data cutoff date of December 31, 2020. This updated inventory information is available to the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) TRU waste complex, Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) stakeholders, and regulators. The TRU waste inventory information is used for strategic planning, and supports the DOE Carlsbad Field Office (CBFO) input into documents (e.g., WIPP Documented Safety Analysis and National Environmental Policy Act evaluations), performance assessments, planned changes, and other design changes as needed for the WIPP project.

12 MANAGEMENT OF RADIOACTIVE AND NON-RADIOACTIVE W↗
DOE OSTI2024

A Mid-Century Net-Zero Scenario for the State of Wyoming and its Economic Impacts

Clean hydrogen has the potential to help achieve 10% economy-wide emissions reductions by 2050 relative to 2005, promote energy security and resilience, and develop a new economy in the United States. In 2030, the hydrogen economy could create about 100,000 new jobs to build new capital projects and clean hydrogen infrastructure. The Wyoming Energy Authority recently announced the state’s energy strategy, which establishes a goal of net-zero emissions by 2050. Under all likely scenarios, achieving a mid-century net-zero target will pose challenges and create opportunities for Wyoming’s energy sector. If executed properly, the transition could favorably affect the state’s economy overall in the long term. This research program examines the economic impact of fossil energy production in Wyoming and provides various predictions for future energy mixes to achieve net-zero emissions. Preliminary work suggests that Wyoming-based hydrogen production could have significant economic benefits and job creation implications for Wyoming. This study further assesses Wyoming’s opportunities to create hydrogen-based industries, assess economic impacts, identify knowledge gaps and research needs, and create a Hydrogen Center of Excellence to accelerate commercialization and deployment. This project helped to understand Wyoming's areas of focus for research and development and identified its areas of strength and potential challenges in creating a hydrogen ecosystem. As a result of this study, we estimate that for blue hydrogen produced from coal and gas resources, the overall cost reduction will be driven mainly by the carbon-sequestration tax credit and the improvement in carbon capture. Mature technologies, like SMR and PSA, will make limited contributions. They have no or limited reductions from an additional capacity deployment in future costs. We also understand the importance of continued support from public and private sectors for Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS)-related research, development, and demonstration programs at federal and state levels. The successful and efficient production of blue hydrogen requires a unique blend of energy resources, geology, regulation, law, and infrastructure. Wyoming has the distinction of meeting all these demands. The team also estimates that the availability and command of water resources accessible for hydrogen production are crucial for developing new projects. Water treatment, use, and disposal after treatment will also make projects possible. Primarily, this is relevant for hydrogen made using renewable energy. Wyoming has one of the best wind resource capacity in the nation. Harnessing this resource is challenging due to limited transmission line availability. Hydrogen could become one of the solutions to the stranded resource problem, primarily if the water availability challenge is addressed. Using produced oil & gas water could help to solve the problem. A commonly cited barrier to the expansion of hydrogen markets is the cost associated with constructing new pipelines, which typically require large amounts of capital to develop. Wyoming already possesses much of the export infrastructure needed to connect Wyoming’s hydrogen production with major markets across the West Coast, Pacific Northwest, Midwest, and Front Range regions of the United States, where a large portion of Wyoming’s natural gas is already transported. In addition to transportation by pipeline, rail transportation of hydrogen has also proven feasible. Wyoming uses its extensive railway system to transport large amounts of coal to its export partners across the United States. By using cryogenic or compressed-gas cars, Wyoming has the potential to add hydrogen to its existing network of railroad energy exports. The same technology may also be applied to hydrogen transport via trucks traveling interstate highways. Wyoming’s workforce is ready to meet the demands of clean hydrogen development. Many of the skills and training needed for hydrogen production are the same skills already possessed by Wyoming’s oil & gas and coal workforce. Many government and industry leaders expect clean hydrogen and other low-carbon energy projects to generate significant job growth and to recruit many already-trained oil & gas and coal workers whose jobs may be displaced. As energy companies seek to penetrate the markets for Wyoming hydrogen production, there is a natural mutual benefit to Wyoming’s workers and companies seeking to launch projects with the assistance of a trained workforce. Wyoming’s university and community college system have adopted several programs to ensure that highly qualified engineers and other technically skilled employees continue to graduate with skills to support the development of hydrogen and other innovative energy projects moving forward. Throughout the project, stakeholder outreach and education took many forms, including meetings with several major companies in the industry, collaborating with local government organizations, educational organizations, and national laboratories, tribal outreach and engagement, the sponsoring of several hydrogen-focused projects in many departments throughout the University of Wyoming, and developing a collaboration with international universities. The products of these collaborations consist of working relationships with several companies in the industry, educational institutions, national labs, and local government, as well as strong connections with individuals who will play an essential role in the success of the Hydrogen Energy Research Center.

08 HYDROGEN↗